There’s something for everyone in North Carolina this weekend: a triathlon at the coast, looking down for fall color in the Piedmont, taking the Great Pumpkin Mountain Challenge in the high country.
Coast
Thought your triathlon season was over? How about one last event — this Saturday’s Emerald Isle Triathlon. This is a slightly longer sprint distance tri: 750 meter swim in the Atlantic, 19.3k out-and-back bike ride along NC 58, 5k run along Ocean Drive. Flat, fast coastal race — with the buoyant ocean to lend a hand. 8 a.m. More info here.read more
The understory (dogwood) is turning at Hemlock Bluffs, the canopy not yet.
Sunday, Marcy and I headed over to Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary after roadside flashes of sourwood red and dogwood peach suggested the fall color show was just getting underway. Roadside trees — stressed by the heat of automotive exhaust — are often the first to show their chromatic hand. When they start to go, we grab the camera and head for woods.read more
Monday — never an easy time for the outdoors enthusiast. After a weekend of adventure, returning to the humdrum work-a-day world can make one melancholy. To help ease this trying transition, every Monday we feature a 90 Second Escape. Essentially, it’s a 90-second video of a place you’d probably rather be: a trail, a park, a greenway, a lake … anywhere as long as it’s in the sun.read more
The Rocky Branch Greenway, skirting the bucolic Dix campus.
Raleigh has again been deemed the best place in America to live, this time by BusinessWeek.com. The reasons are several — good public schools, the universities, diverse cultural institutions, lots of bars and restaurants, low crime, strong (relatively) economy. Near the top of the list, great parks.read more
Diane Van Deren has climbed the highest peak in South America, Argentina’s 22,834-foot Aconcagua. She’s run a who’s who of endurance racing’s top events, including Colorado’s Leadville 100 and Hardrock 100, the latter, with 33,000 feet of total climbing, considered by many to be the hardest 100 miler around (she’s done that one six times). In 2008 she won the 300-mile version of the Yukon Arctic Ultra 300, vowed at the finish she was done with racing in temperatures of 50 below zero, then won the 430-mile version of the same race the following year. Before that she played five years on the women’s pro tennis tour with the likes of Chris Everett, Martina Navratilova and Tracy Austin.read more
